I dream of dairy

Tonight I made my first attempt at yogurt-making. I was uncertain about whether or not I can be eating yogurt with this project, because though I have found local organic plain yogurt, it is virtually impossible to find the ultimate source of the cultures. Yogurt is made using existing yogurt enzymes - so how far back can I possibly trace it? After discussing these issues with my friends, family, and comp group, I decided that despite the "unknown" origin of the yogurt cultures, I can still consider it local. To make it more "local," however, I decided to use the existing yogurt to make my own. Rebecca and Professor Pallant were both kind enough to lend me some of their local organic plain yogurts as starters for mine. I used a half gallon of my raw milk from Bookamer farm, and heated it to 185 degrees on the stovetop, stirring constantly. Once my milk was bubbly and frothy, I let it cool to 110 degrees, still stirring constantly (this process takes much longer than you'd think - about an hour total! - and it gets boring). Then I added 3 tablespoons of my yogurt donations and stirred them in to my milk. I poured the combination into a glass container, wrapped it in a dish towel, and put it in the oven on warm. When I go to sleep, I'll turn off the oven, but leave my yogurt in there until morning - a minimum of 7 hours is recommended. Hopefully I'll have some good news and yogurt pictures to report tomorrow!